


We've Got Every Rerun

by RoseFrederick



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breeding Program, Captivity, Dubious Consent, Episode: s02e01 Designate This, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Human Genitalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:38:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8210564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseFrederick/pseuds/RoseFrederick
Summary: For an evil authoritarian government facility without conscience, Manticore is pretty lax about making sure their orders for the breeding program are followed.  In a world where they were a little less concerned about Eyes Only, perhaps things might have gone a bit more like this.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nilozot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilozot/gifts).



> A/N: So I have a confession to make. I saw your prompts for this fandom back during SmutSwap and thought, 'sounds fun but I've never done anything like that and probably couldn't do it justice'. The idea kind of stuck in my brain, though, and then I saw your similar requests for Darkest Night. As such, it's a little more smut and a little less dark than it might have otherwise been.

Today has not been Max's day. For one thing, she's still stuck in Manticore and her escape plans currently have little more substance to them than pure determination and a barely started escape tunnel that may lead nowhere useful. That was enough to cramp any girl's style, but she'd just spent the last interminable stretch of time strapped face down to a table while blank-faced Manticore doctors painfully jammed needles into her spine because her X7 clone is currently dying of progeria. Her years on the outside had made enduring their treatment of her as an unfeeling lab rat harder, and their practice of turning any medical procedure they could into an additional study of transgenic pain tolerances didn't help keep the embarrassing whimpers from escaping between her clenched teeth. Still, worse than the pain and the detachment of the doctors had been Renfro. The woman had hovered over Max the whole time like some kind of smug blonde vulture, making comments Max had done her best to tune out. 

When the procedure is finally over and they allow her to gingerly get up and get dressed, Max is both hoping and expecting to be dismissed to go back to training. Which is why, when Renfro says something else entirely, it takes more than a moment for Max to register the words. Even once she's played them back in her head, she doesn't quite understand them. 

“What did you offer him?”

Seeing no choice but to admit she needs clarification, Max responds, “Ma'am?”

“494.” When Max offers no answer, Renfro rolls her eyes and adds, “To get him to lie for you?” 

Max plasters an expression of surprise on her face, but Renfro isn't fooled. “Don't bother to play dumb. I told you I can see right through your good little soldier act. You're pretending, but inside you think you're not just another one of the animals. There's no way you willingly complied with those orders.” Max isn't sure what to do with the woman's amused tone and her unexpected insight, so she remains quiet. Renfro arches one elegantly sculpted brow, “I was just curious what you possibly might have offered him, maybe your boyfriend should be upset after all.”

Max clenches her jaw and still refuses to respond. She won't admit to being caught out and she's not all that interested in anything about her so-called breeding partner and his motivations. Max's obstinate silence doesn't seem to curb Renfro's amusement any, unfortunately.

“Ah well. It hardly matters.”

Renfro nods to one of the lab techs. The man steps over with a large needle, grabs Max's arm, and shoves it in, pushing the plunger with little care. She really wants to yell and demand to know what she was just injected with, and Renfro's expression is just daring her to, but it won't help her get out of this nightmare any faster if she ends up in punishment for talking back again.

“I know, I know, you still think you're people. It's cute, 452, really. But my patience is running out and I think it's time we shattered a few of those illusions you're holding onto so desperately. Dismissed.”

For the next couple hours of interminable training on military tactics, Max puzzles over the exchange and wonders what the hell they injected her with. By the time she's being locked into her cell for the night, however, she doesn't have to guess anymore. Although they've crept up on her slowly as the hours have passed, she eventually recognizes the signs. Manticore keeps the temperature inside the base at what normally feels like a slight chill to her, but Max's own temperature is definitely rising.

She tries to force herself to concentrate on working on her escape tunnel. She'd been hoping she would actually get far enough tonight to see what's behind the blocks of her cell wall. She tries to work, but focusing is increasingly hard and her makeshift tool keeps slipping as she finds herself squirming around awkwardly in discomfort the more time passes. She's burning up and every millimeter of skin on her body feels sensitized to the barest brush of her own clothing. Even when she can concentrate enough to push away the purely physical discomfort, it doesn't stop her mind from piling on the distraction. Max keeps finding herself zoning out, staring off blankly into space, her perfect memory and active imagination more than capable of combining visuals of the all-too-gorgeous bodies she'd spent her day working out among with fantasies of an entirely different kind of workout.

After the third time she nearly cuts into her hand, she jumps up with a curse, putting the tool back into place under her cot and pulling the whole thing back down to hide her work. She starts pacing although she knows trying to burn the energy off that way isn't going to help, but she has to do something. Max strips off her t-shirt after yet another trickle of sweat inches its way down her spine, but it doesn't cool her down any and it doesn't stop the material of her camo pants from brushing against her inner thighs in distracting ways as she moves. 

The obvious comparison to an animal pacing its cage after Renfro's words earlier that day suddenly burns itself starkly across her mind. Needing that thought to go away, she tries to sit on her bunk and will the feelings away, but she just ends up twitching in irritation, needing – needing something. The thought of doing push-ups like she would back home briefly occurs to her, but it feels too militaristic here in Manticore's own barracks. She doesn't want to give Renfro that satisfaction, either.

A sound in the corridor prompts her to think that maybe when the guard comes back through for lights out, she can ask him to give a girl a hand. She bites her lip and squirms again at the thought. Only a few seconds later the still rational part of her brain catches up and she shudders in disgust. The guard in question is older than Lydecker, paunchy and balding, and is a lackey for Manticore on top of it. God, she hates being in heat. 

Max rubs her thighs together, frustrated and wanting the friction despite herself. Her hands start to creep downward, but she fists them in the material over hips before they go where she needs because she knows that's a trap. It'll feel a little better for a moment, but previous experience tells her until she gets something other than her own fingers inside her, the aching, empty need isn't going to do anything but get worse for at least a day. Plus, not being able to control herself to that extent when the guards could come by at any moment? It's too degrading and she won't do it. She's not that desperate yet, she won't let herself be – she can control this.

The sound of footsteps out in the corridor drawing nearer has her up off the bunk, standing in front of the cell door practically quivering in anticipation before she even consciously processes what the hell she's doing. When 494 saunters in and the door closes behind him, Max's overheated brain finally puts together the reason for this torture. At least, it does so after a thorough observation of how well her fellow transgenic is put together. She's just licking her lips because they're dry, that's all. It should have clicked sooner, but heat doesn't exactly enhance her higher thought processes. It doesn't matter, though. Renfro may have shot her up with something to try and force her to participate in the breeding program, but Renfro's an idiot. Max has resisted jumping someone while in heat before.

Considering that the male transgenic they want her to get busy with is a cocky nuisance who has her dead brother's face, the idea Max would rip off his clothes, shove him down on her bunk and – where did his shirt suddenly go? Max blinks in puzzlement, looks down at the torn fabric in her hands and back up at the now half-naked transgenic male body in front of her, and realizes she's in so much trouble. 

“Guess they really do want you as part of the breeding program,” 494 says, smirking at her. There's a mean little edge to his tone and Max remembers clearly enough he hadn't been thrilled about being paired with her, either, the jerk. 

Despite the current ache driving her crazy, Max keenly feels annoyance at his smugness and clear amusement at her predicament. Unfortunately, it doesn't make him look or, she thinks, inhaling, smell any less attractive. Still, Max is more than her hormones, so she snaps at him instead of any of the other very bad suggestions her brain is putting forth instead. She tosses the remains of his shirt back at him, which he doesn't bother to catch, and spits out, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs carelessly, causing the muscles of his shoulders and chest to move in interesting and distracting ways that keep her from registering his words right away. “There's not exactly much point if you're not in heat. Before Renfro was just testing to see how obedient you were.”

“Huh,” Max replies, inarticulately, having stepped closer to run her hands over all the deliciously bare skin her fellow transgenic now has on display. Like her, he's warmer than an ordinary would be, and designed to stay in top physical shape. He just stands there, letting her touch him without reciprocating or pushing her away. She'd think he was entirely unaffected by her current state if it weren't for the increase she can hear in his heartbeat and overly deep breaths he keeps taking. 

While she's distracted, he keeps on talking. “Really, it's pretty obvious with the chances of conception being so low otherwise. A breeding program without inducing estrus cycles would be too inefficient for-” he pauses as her hands get to his belt and start tugging it free, “and you're not even listening with your upstairs brain at all right now, are you, 452?”

The hated numbers of her designation is just enough to snap her out of it for a moment. “My name is _Max_. Also, shut up.”

“Sure, I'm not really all that interested in talking right now either,” he says almost indifferently, with just a tinge of amusement. He may be affected by her heat, but clearly not nearly as much as she currently is. 

Ugh. If she wasn't nearly dripping with need right now and he wasn't right there all male and available, Max is sure she would be kicking him into the door again. As it is, she decides to settle for trying to make him as uncomfortably wound up as she feels right now, which should at least wipe that stupid little smirk off his face. Suiting action to the thought, she gets his pants open and reaches into his underwear. Her plan backfires, however, as she's expecting the feel of hot smooth skin and instead there's some weird feathery something that grabs at her fingers. She rips her hand out and backs away a couple steps, temporarily shocked completely out of her heat-hazed state. “What the hell is that?”

He looks kind of offended, but proceeds to remove the rest of his clothes, and Max's eyes are drawn inexorably downward as he stands back up after bending over to unfasten his boots and push his pants off. The main body of his shaft is normal enough, but there are strange little protrusions, not quite thin enough to be considered hair-like, all over it. And are they - waving? Max blinks, taken just as aback by the visual as she was by the unexpected texture. 

“You do know we're not exactly human, right?” Max isn't impressed with the slightly condescending tone his voice has taken on, but she's a little too wigged to make an issue of it. He's still yapping on obliviously anyway. “There's all kinds of other animals that went into creating us, you know male cats have -”

“Spines. Oh hell no,” she says, backing further away. It's not something she would otherwise know, but that weird little fact had made it into one of Original Cindy's dissertations on the nature of the male to oppress fine sisters whatever the species. However hard up she is she's not that desperate. She doesn't think she'll get that desperate. Okay, so she just really hopes she won't. Crap.

Even though she doesn't really want that thing anywhere near her, the rest of him on display is not helping her calm, so she grasps desperately for a distraction and grabs onto her own arms to keep her hands from doing anything she doesn't want. “I thought Manticore was all proud of itself because the X5s were the first series capable of fully blending in with humans.”

“We are-” Max looks pointedly back down at his erection, tiny protrusions rubbing against each other and waving randomly through the air in turns, and then up to meet his eyes, wordlessly raising a brow. “Okay, so they thought we were physiologically identical to humans on the outside only until we hit puberty, but you're being ridiculous.” 

He rolls his eyes and reaches down with deliberation to take himself in hand. Max watches in fascination as the strange little stalks bend and undulate around the motion as he strokes slowly up and down. They match easily to the tempo and rhythm he sets and as she watches, Max goes from being vaguely weirded out to being a little curious about what they'd feel like inside of her. 

Okay, she admits, as another surge of wetness between her thighs makes the material of her underwear stick unpleasantly, a lot curious. Like she wants to have taken him for a ride five minutes ago curious. He must see that written on her face, because he steps forward and unfastens her belt and pants, pushing at them when she doesn't object.

The feel of his big, warm hands skimming against the sensitive skin of her belly and hips is the final straw, and Max gives in, grabbing at his shoulders, trying to almost climb him by gripping his hip with her leg, rising onto the toes of her other foot. He chuckles a little and that kind of pisses her off anew, but before she can really have second thoughts, he also slides a hand easily down into her pants and starts rubbing between her folds, spreading her wetness around. It's only a few seconds before he's sliding a couple fingers all the way inside her and giving an extra little grind with his thumb against her clit when she wriggles against his hand and lets out an involuntary whimper. It's not enough yet, but it still feels better than nothing, and the anticipation of knowing how this ends is a different and more pleasant kind of urgency. She buries her face against his neck, bringing her other arm up to grip onto the one thrown around his shoulders as he thrusts into her with his fingers. After too short a time, his other hand that's been stroking her side grips and pushes against her waist, sliding her off him. She growls at him when his hand pulls out from between her thighs, but he just guides her backwards until her legs bump against the edge of her cot. He shoves her pants completely off her hips and pushes her down onto the bed so he can get them all the way off. The air is a cool shock against her bare, fevered skin. 

After her pants are tossed aside, Max squirms her way back further to settle fully onto the cot. He grips under her knees to press her legs up and apart, settling himself in the space between her spread thighs. He holds himself just far enough away they aren't touching but she can still feel the heat radiating off his skin as he pauses for just a moment, looking her over, eyes dark, but Max doesn't have the patience for waiting any longer. He goes to say something, but Max wraps her fingers in his hair to yank his mouth down over her own instead. She would definitely rather be kissing than have him be talking again, and Max loses herself a little in the way his tongue slides against hers and the feel of his plump bottom lip between her teeth. Even as good as that is, and how long it's been, it's only a few seconds before another sharp thrum of need rushes through her and she's simply too impatient to play around any longer. She grabs for his hip and tugs, urging him downward from where he's stayed hovering over her. As if he's been waiting for just that, he immediately settles the weight of his lower body against her and thrusts inside. 

At first, all she can really think is that finally, finally she's getting what she needs. Despite her earlier apprehension about his anatomy, at first it doesn't really feel all that different than any other time she's had sex in heat. As he moves inside her, gradually the sensation changes more. She can feel the little protrusions brushing against her inner walls, and the rhythmic motions of it start causing her own inner muscles to respond in their own wave of muscular contractions. It's strange, and it ramps up the throbbing of sensation building higher and higher within her beyond anything she's ever felt before. She almost wants to pull away, the feeling is so intense. A noise somewhere between a whine and a low cry works its way out of her throat and she's sure she's gripping his sides hard enough to bruise even a transgenic. Before she can even manage to register the embarrassment of being so out of control, she involuntarily throws her head back hard against the unforgiving surface of the thin mattress crying out, overwhelmed and shaky. It happens again in almost indecently quick succession before he stutters and halts deep inside her with a groan and another surge of pressure against her still pulsing inner walls. She has to bite her own lip hard to keep a whimper from sneaking out. The way her breath is coming out in little pants is embarrassing enough.

It takes her a few moments afterwards to regain any of her equilibrium. He's still a heavy, warm weight laid over her, slightly slick with sweat, and breathing warm air against the space where her neck and shoulder meet when Max realizes exactly what she's just done. And even worse, how pleased Renfro is going to be. 

“Get off!” 

She slaps at one muscular shoulder, but before she can get up the irritation to really push him completely away, he raises his head just enough to look her in the eyes and tells her firmly, “Don't.” Max hates being ordered around, but something in the seriousness of his voice and expression has her stilling under him instead of fighting harder. When he's sure she's not going to move herself, eyes boring into hers the whole time, he moves his hips just a tiny hitch backwards and there's a deeply uncomfortable pull inside her that makes her gasp. 

She's careful not to move her lower body further, but she still glares up at him, incensed. “What the hell, you jerk! You said no spines!”

“Actually, I didn't say any such thing, but they aren't. They're more like, uh, grippers?” His intonation makes it a question, and he minutely tilts his head from side to side in consideration of his next words. “They had a few theories, might be the cat and dolphin mixing it up or some kind of bug thing. The scientists didn't really think about how many of the behaviors they wanted were associated with mating. Not until puberty hit.”

“Bet they were super disappointed they couldn't send their toys out to seduce targets for them,” Max spits out, bitterly.

“Oh, they still do.” He says it completely matter-of-fact, and if he's bothered by it, she can't tell.

“Come on, no way they'd risk that kind of exposure," Max says with assurance, rolling her eyes.

“Nah, as I was telling you before, we are physiologically indistinguishable - usually. We just also have an ovulation stimulating system triggered by female transgenic pheromones. It's not an issue with ordinaries.”

Oh, great, Max thinks. Just what she needs, an even higher chance of getting pregnant. Still, she has to clarify, “So it's perfectly normal with-”

“It's _normal for a transgenic_ no matter what,” he says with pointed emphasis, before continuing, “but no, a human wouldn't notice anything unusual. They tested extensively to be sure and that's why they still consider the X5s a success.”

He moves a little experimentally, and Max is relieved it doesn't hurt this time. She pushes at him again, and he just looks at her curiously before she spits out, “Get off me!”

“Are you sure you want me to?” Again, he's got that stupid smirk on his face, like he knows something she doesn't know. Ass.

“Yes, you idiot! I went into heat, we copulated. Mission accomplished. Get. Off.” She punctuates the last two words with pointed hits to his shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

He laughs and says, “Well, if you say so, who am I to argue?”

Max gasps in surprise when he pulls out and the aching need she was feeling before they had sex is suddenly back with the same ferocity the second he's separated from her. She whimpers involuntarily at how wrong the emptiness feels, and by the time she has a hold of herself, she looks up to see that he's leaning against the wall, watching her writhe, clearly still amused.

Max groans and puts a hand over her face for a moment and considers trying to tough it out if for no other reason than he is such a cocky pain in the ass. Also, she really doesn't want to produce a baby for Manticore. However, it only takes a couple minutes of squirming uncomfortably on the cot, perfectly able to smell him and the mix of their scents together before the burning need starts to overwhelm her objections again. Another involuntary whimper escapes her throat as her thighs rub together. She turns a glare to her companion, still nonchalantly propped up against the wall. He's hard again, but while Max is in a state of not-quite painful arousal, his expression is still smug and not at all uncomfortable, the jerk. Although the intensity of the unwavering attention he's paying the movements of her body make her question how much his disinterest is an affectation.

“Get back over here.”

He gives her an excessively fake questioning look, “Are you sure? I thought you said your heat was over?” 

“Smart ass.”

“Oh, now, Max, that just hurts. I thought we'd moved beyond petty insults, that we had really come together – as it were.”

Max does not remotely appreciate his sarcastic tone or how funny he only thinks he is. Especially when his voice sends a throb of extra need crashing through her body. Damn heat, anyway. Still, she needs answers, and he seems to have them, so she swallows her irritation enough to ask, “What the hell is going on? This should be done with!”

“You've only been in heat with ordinaries.”

“So?”

“Sooo,” he draws out the word, “the whole point of heat is to reproduce. Ordinaries aren't a good genetic match for us, so when you're clearly taking lesser males, your reproductive system shuts down and gives up. Heat between transgenics, you'll be like this for several days, probably.” 

Max searches for any sign on his face that he's messing with her, and not finding it, doesn't even try to hide her dismay. “Days? You've got to be kidding.” 

“You don't think Manticore did research into every aspect of our funky biology when it became clear we weren't quite what they wanted?” For the first time, he doesn't exactly sound like a good little Manticore automaton cheerfully reciting facts about their messed up origins without a care. She sees unexpected bitterness in his face just for a flash so quick she almost questions whether she imagined it. 

The impression doesn't exactly stay at the forefront of her mind as she gives in to the frustration and springs up off her cot to stalk over to where he's standing. For a second he recoils, clearly suspicious she might hit him again, but she's not quite so stubborn she can't bend in the face of the inevitable. She throws an arm around his neck to help lift herself up, and quickly catching on to what she's doing, 494 grips under her thighs to lift her and help her slide down onto him. It's awkward right at first since she doesn't have enough leverage to move like she wants to, and she growls in frustration. He reacts to her annoyance almost immediately, turning them so her back is braced against the wall. She doesn't exactly enjoy the way the concrete scrapes against the bare skin of her back, but she's too concentrated on where he is thrusting in and out of her at a punishing pace to really care too much. She loses herself in pushing back against his movements, mouthing at his neck and jaw, and hearing the sounds of their bodies coming together once more loud in the small room. The second time, it takes just a little bit longer for everything to gradually build between them, but the sensations are no less intense. 

When he's come to a stop inside her again, though, the thought she has to acknowledge him as more than just one of Manticore's puppets comes back full force, looking at his too-familiar face from so close, watching his closed eyelids flutter a little and he draws heavy breaths after all the exertion. As degrading as this whole stupid thing is, in a moment of fairness, Max has to admit it wasn't his idea either. If Renfro hadn't punished them before because expecting them to breed had been a farce, she can't entirely blame him for following orders now when it doesn't even mean actively forcing her. Not to mention anything that makes him more real and separate from things she really doesn't want to be thinking about right now, considering the current situation she's just going to have to give in to? It has got to be all to the good in Max's mind. Therefore, “You need a name.”

“I've got a designation.” He doesn't even open his eyes.

“Yeah, that's not really working for me. Doesn't suit you.”

He does look at her now, his eyes full of clear amusement again, and she knows something stupid is going to come out of his mouth before he even starts talking. “Well, I'll be sure to complain to Renfro-”

“Do you always have to be such a smart – Alec. I'm gonna call you Alec.”

He does nothing but look at her for a long moment, though she's not sure what he's thinking. His eyes are really green from this close, and she wonders if she's imagining that his pupils look slightly slitted. “I can live with that.”

When Alec seems to tire of holding her up, he shifts his grip and walks them back over to her cot and sits with her still intimately connected on his lap. It should be ridiculously awkward, sitting naked atop a near-stranger, but it's not. It feels right, which Max figures has to be another weird transgenic aspect of the heat, too. It's too awkward to ask him about, though, just in case she's wrong. 

Not wanting to think about why she's not freaking out, Max feels the need to fill the silence. The silence, that, now she's thinking about it, is kind of odd. “Why are you being so quiet?”

He chuckles, the sound rumbling through both their bodies. “Complaining?”

“Not even,” she denies quickly. “You're kind of mouthy, figured you'd be yapping away the whole time.”

One corner of his mouth tilts upwards. “I figured you'd kick me again.”

“And we couldn't let that get in the way of you getting some, right?” A little bitterness creeps out, despite her earlier thoughts about not blaming him.

He scrutinizes her expression, his own turning unusually serious. “It's heat. There isn't any point in fighting it. We are what we are, and that includes being unable to resist fertility pheromones courtesy of our furrier ancestors.” He shrugs eloquently. Max wishes she felt as accepting of all the weird things Manticore crammed into her as he sounds. He keeps talking like they're normal and not weird lab experiments that will always have to pretend, and she doesn't know what to make of that.

Of course, that does not stop her temper from boiling as hot as her libido at the next thing to come out of his mouth. “Besides, I told you already, this isn't exactly my idea of a plum assignment either.”

The thing is, she doesn't even like him – but the idea she's not good enough for his tastes, well, it strangely hurts. And when Max gets hurt, she hurts back. 

“Ow! See? Are you trying to prove my point for me?” he asks, wiping at the new, bleeding scratch marks on his arm. 

“What do you even know. You're just a brainwashed puppet who does whatever they tell you!” He doesn't even have the sense to be ashamed of being used as one of their assassins. Why does she care what he thinks?

If her words sting at all, Max can't tell from his expression. “All part of the Manticore experience. The only reason you haven't had your fair turn yet is they still want info you knew on the outside. They say jump, I do. They say copulate with a transgenic super bitch, well I'm not gonna force anything but with heat that's not really an issue. I already had more than my fair share of getting my head scrambled and most of it wasn't even my fault, so count me out on your master plan to go straight to PsyOps for an extra six months.”

Max rolls her eyes, but there is one thing that sticks. “What do you mean most of it wasn't your fault? Which part do you figure was your fault then?”

She says it confrontationally, but she doesn't expect him to pale and his eyes to go wide and distant, like he's seeing something that isn't there. “Alec?” She pauses, and turns his face towards her, saying the name she so recently gave him again, and he blinks for a moment, lost. 

Suddenly his vision snaps back into focus and his eyes meet her own. “I don't – drop it. Just drop it.”

There's something about the dead tone in his voice and a confused look of horror in his eyes that convinces her to do just that, and they're left sitting awkwardly in silence. Her heat being muted for the moment does not mean it's completely absent, however, and as more time passes, she starts rocking in his lap, bracing her hands behind her on his thighs for a little more leverage. He makes a little noise of wordless protest when her nails dig into his skin, but he doesn't voice any stronger objection. Alec's hands go to her hips, helping her move herself up and down, although this time is much slower and more deliberate than before; they're both a little tired from the two previous couplings. 

Alec leans in just a little bit to nibble at the skin of her breasts, as they're conveniently almost level with his face as they move together. As things start to build to that internal syncing again, Max's movements become more frantic and she doesn't object when Alec grabs her hair to tilt her head down so he can explore her mouth. This time after Alec climaxes, he strokes her hair back out of her face and carefully turns them about on the cot so she can lay across him without disengaging where they're still joined together. Gradually as their beating hearts slow and the sweat on their bodies cools, both of them fall asleep. Max is surprised she can just drift off with him right there, since she's never been able to sleep with someone else in the room entirely comfortably since the last time she was in Manticore, surrounded by her brothers and sisters. Something about Alec being there just feels right, and she's too tired and too helpless to her current biological meltdown to react to how very wrong that is.

Although there's no way to tell time in her cell, Max figures it must be a few hours later when she wakes up, feeling the need burning again, although she's also starting to feel a little sore. She shifts a little, and Alec groans underneath her, muttering something indistinct even her hearing can't quite make out without fully waking up. She runs her hands over his chest and abdomen, and places little bites against the line of his jaw and the lobe of his ear, gradually rousing him to response. His cock twitches in interest inside her several minutes before his eyes finally open and he really gets with the program, thrusting up from underneath her. If she feels a little surge of satisfaction every time she figures out a new way to push his buttons and make him gasp and growl or put a hitch in his rhythm, she dismisses it as just another part of the heat thing. Even if she's never cared during heat before about getting the guy revved up more than necessary.

He's not wrong about it taking days for her to get through the heat completely. Probably the most humiliating part is when the guard comes to escort them to the showers – and by that time they both really need it – and she can't actually hold herself back for the whole duration. Max is not into exhibitionism, and though Alec's body covers most of hers as she bends over braced against the shower wall with her legs spread to give him access, she can still see the way the guard leers when he leads them back to her cell afterwards. It doesn't help that she resisted as long as she could so by the time she'd reached out to abruptly grab Alec's arm to drag him to her from the next shower head over, she'd ended up desperate enough to do all the work of fucking herself on him while he did little more than stand and watch her, only occasionally running his hands up and down her wet body. 

After that, she tries to at least be grateful that her cell is somewhat private. Though when she wonders about that and asks why there aren't cameras everywhere, Alec says something about the move between bases and budget issues. Of course, as she's face down in her pillow at the time, she doesn't really ask any more questions to follow up on it. If her first instinct is always to reach for him when she wakes, it has to be just the heat. 

Even when it happens during one of the increasingly lengthy periods where the urges aren't as strong, and reaching out doesn't immediately lead to sex. The need to just touch him has got to be a transgenic thing, and surely it will go away once her heat is over. 

It's not all bad. Sometimes they talk. Although he has an amazing ability to get on her nerves, there is something steadying about Alec's insistence that there's nothing wrong with being a transgenic. She tries to argue with him about it at first, but even then she knows in her own head that she's always enjoyed having the enhancements it gives her, even if she's hated the downsides. Alec easily accepts both. It's just the way things are. To someone who has spent half her life trying desperately to blend in with normal people and felt all the more of a freak for it, she can't quite understand his attitude but she envies it. And the more he tells her stories about growing up with the other transgenics, the more she has to admit that even if they aren't normal, they certainly aren't wrong, or worse, alone.

When it's clear that her heat has finally subsided since they wake up and she feels no immediate urge for sex after what has to have been several hours, Alec gets up and dresses. It's only a few minutes later he's calling for the guard, although she thinks there's some hint of regret in his expression. For her own part, she wants to object and suggest he stay just a little longer, against her own judgment and for no reason she can articulate. The guy was a complete pain in the ass, but she figures considering this place he could have been a lot worse. Max has been made well aware that all of Manticore's soldiers have been brainwashed to think of her unit as traitors, and maybe it was just acting for Renfro's plans, but Alec had been the first one to not really hold that against her. 

It doesn't matter though. Maybe if they're in the exercise yard or the mess at the same time she'll see him again in passing, but it's not important. No matter how bereft she feels at his leaving her with only a slight backward glance. She's just got to complete her escape plan and get out of here and get back to her real life. Especially if Renfro's stupid breeding program was successful. 

At least that's what she keeps telling herself, when she wants to call for him to stay as he gets up. Or when she rolls over every couple of hours for the next few days and Alec isn't there and she feels a weird sense of loss. She hopes it's just an artifact of feeling so isolated in this cold, unfriendly place and not some other transgenic thing she doesn't know about. She doesn't even like Alec. She's in love with Logan and she has a life she fits into perfectly well back in Seattle. She ignores the tiny little voice in the back of her head that whispers, _liar_.

She doesn't have to keep herself from looking for him in the yard, as it turns out, because she always seems to know he's there when he is. In the yard, in the mess hall, in the hallways. Max pretends like she can't because she's freaked out by it and doesn't know why it's happening, and she doesn't interact with anyone she would be willing to ask about it. Including him. She doesn't want to talk to Alec, or more accurately, she doesn't want to want to talk to Alec. 

The other transgenics have never much wanted to interact with her because of her status as an escapee. So her days are at best silent aside from being ordered around in the yard, and at worst filled with taunts said under another transgenic's breath or loudly in front of guards by Renfro. It takes the doctors five days to figure out she's definitely pregnant after her heat, and she puts up with another week of being taunted about following orders as she works her way through her escape plan. She found a passage through the walls down into the basement, but that didn't get her past either the bars on the only window she'd been able to find down there or the X7s in the forest outside. 

It does not help that she feels a weird kind of anxiety at the thought of leaving Alec behind so completely. She does her best to shake off the weird attachment she feels, telling herself again that she doesn't even like him, can't stand him, and if he could be worse, that's not really saying much. She certainly can't trust him enough to take him with her, even if she had any way of communicating to him that she had a plan to escape, when she eventually manages to put one together. Whatever her weird attachment is, she's sure she'll get over it given time. 

Considering everything, Max is utterly surprised to find herself blurring across the quad to slam into a sparring opponent of Alec's who had just gotten in a hard kick to the idiot's ribs when he wasn't blocking well enough. The two of them stare up at her from the mat with twin baffled expressions, and she realizes with her own surge of confusion that she's actually growling at 413 for hitting her - her - annoying former breeding partner? She stops herself and backs down, feeling awkward and almost as if some outside force had possessed her for a moment. The trainer in charge orders her and Alec to report to Renfro. Still incredibly confused, Max walks off with Alec falling into step beside her. 

Alec looks more worried than she thinks the situation warrants, but she waits until they're out of earshot of the quad to ask, “What's that face for?”

He glances her way and says, “What happens next depends on if this was part of Renfro's breeding program scheme or not. If it was on purpose, we've been signed up as lab rats, if it's not, our punishment isn't going to be pretty.”

“Our punishment? What are you yapping about?”

“Mating.”

“Uh, that's what they wanted us to do in the first place, and I don't see what me acting weird has to do with-”

“I don't mean copulating or breeding, Max, I mean _mating_ -”

“Like the word matters, you ass.”

Alec scoffs at her, and just a hint of a twinkle creeps into his eyes despite the worried expression remaining. “You still keep assuming you know everything about being a transgenic.”

She'd ask him to explain that cryptic statement, but they've reached Renfro's office and there's no more time. Alec lets go of her hand to reach up and rap on the door perfunctorily once before walking in to stand in front of the desk at attention, and Max follows suit to stand at his side. It's just as well Renfro is occupied by something as it's several seconds later when it stuns Max to realize she'd been holding hands with Alec since the Quad for some reason. 

Renfro makes them wait for several more minutes, and Max feels impatient, though she does her best not to show it. Finally, Renfro puts down her pen and looks up at them. “Well. I guess you really must not have been that into Eyes Only, 452, if you went and mated. Congratulations on achieving the next level of the breeding program.”

“You're dismissed, 494.”

After Alec has left, Renfro smiles at her in a creepy way. Even more so than normal. “We intend to study every aspect of the mate bond. Including what happens to the survivor when it breaks,” she says with a certain amount of relish. She watches Max's face for any sign of reaction, but Max keeps her features still. It helps that she has very little idea what the woman is talking about, though she is starting to get an uncomfortable picture.

Renfro folds her hands in front of her on the desk. “Whether or not you get to be that part of the experiment is all going to depend on how well you behave. Just playing along isn't going to cut it anymore, 452.”

“All that trouble to get me back and playing along thrown away, huh?” Max can't quite help the retort leaking out.

“Oh, you're both pregnant and clearly the dominant. 494, on the other hand? Between the suspected latent schizophrenia in his cocktail and a tendency to flout the rules? He's completely expendable. We've already talked about your history of leaving bodies in your wake, so consider this your warning.”

The woman eyes Max again, still clearly hoping for a reaction, but Max won't give her the satisfaction. “Yes, ma'am.”

It isn't until she's back in the hallway outside she lets herself feel the sick twist in her guts Renfro's words had caused. She doesn't even like Alec, but she can't let Renfro kill him because of her. That's all it is. Mating? Whatever. 

After drills are completed for that afternoon, she notices with a sinking heart the cell she's being escorted to is in a completely different barracks and not the one she's so carefully been working on tunneling out of. She steps in to find it's a double occupancy with Alec already inside. She isn't happy to see him, that's just, well, okay, so she'd just be happy to see anybody, right? It has nothing to do with Alec himself. Max internally winces, realizing she's not remotely fooling herself anymore. She's brought out of her thoughts by Alec standing up and coming towards her, stopping about a foot away and speaking.

“So, lab rats it is,” he offers neutrally.

“Looks like. So are you gonna explain this whole mating thing now?” Her voice relays a clear challenge that he'd better do so post haste. 

Alec heaves a big sigh, to Max's annoyance. As if she's really asking so much wanting to be clued in. “I don't know that much more than you do, it's not like Manticore exactly encouraged fraternization before your group blew up the DNA labs.” He pulls away from the hug they had somehow ended up in and guides her by the hand over to sit on the slightly-larger cot, the only furniture in the room. Max should object, but she's not actually sure who started with the touching and it's more comforting than she wants to admit so she just ignores it.

“Well, then how did Renfro know it was a thing? How did you?”

“I said they didn't encourage it, I didn't say it never happened. They didn't expect the females to start going into heat when we hit puberty, and the first couple times they knocked us all out and locked us up. But you know Manticore, everything's an opportunity for experimentation. So they let some of the females go into heat outside of isolation and let nature take its course, so to speak. Seeing how they reacted to one of the male guards, or one of us, or a group of either or both.”

“That's sick!” she exclaims, and gets up from the cot, too restless to stay still and bothered by how comforting his proximity feels after the days of absence. She paces a little, but it doesn't help.

He shrugs. “That's Manticore.”

“Gross.”

“Well, they found that a couple of times when they let just a pair of transgenics copulate, they'd become weirdly attached and hostile to threats to each other. It only happened a few times. One of the pairs was shot trying to escape together and after that the others disappeared into the labs, probably got dissected or something.” His voice sounds unaffected and Max is about to yell at him for it when she catches the distant expression on his face and realizes he's only trying very hard not to care, not that he doesn't. 

“Before now with the breeding program they were, uh, pairing off the females with more than one male to avoid anything like that happening. I figured maybe there were just not a lot of good genetic matches left when they did pairs this time, but I guess it was on purpose.”

“How did you know it was a mating thing just because of what I did?”

Alec heaves a sigh. “The biggest sign was always being overly hostile to threats to the other, but it wasn't just that,” when Max gives him a glare to elaborate, he asks her, “Don't tell me you hadn't noticed? I was really hoping I was just imagining that I always knew where you were until what happened today.” 

She sits back down on the cot that's slightly wider than her old one next to him, partially surrendering to the inevitable again. At first with at least a foot of space between them, but she awkwardly feels the distance the whole time, fidgeting until she gives in and scoots closer so their sides are touching. He looks at her and the corner of his mouth twitches upward, but it's a ghost of the smirks he was giving her before. 

She's surprised to see him look so perturbed. “What's wrong?”

“You mean aside from being signed up as guinea pigs?”

“Not like you seemed to mind before,” Max replies too flippantly. She regrets it more than she wants to when a flash of hurt crosses his expression.

“The breeding program has been going on for months,” he says, and Max bites down a very angry question about whether he had other breeding partners. Why should she care? She doesn't. Except the deep burn of jealousy she feels in her chest makes it clear she does. “This is new and with Manticore, new is rarely anything but bad.” She's more than a little surprised to see clear apprehension in his eyes. 

Max doesn't know what to say, but she can't argue with that. She leans her head on his shoulder, and his arm comes up to wrap around her. It feels strangely right, and that makes her want to pull back away, but she doesn't. All these months back in Manticore have been wearing on her, and she's not going to deny herself the comfort anymore. She doesn't know what any of this means, really, but her escape plan is busted and as completely screwed up as it is, Alec is the only halfway pleasant thing that's happened to her for months.

Max falls asleep to the sound of Alec's heartbeat under her ear. It takes a long time for her to drift off when each rise and fall of his chest echoes the word _expendable_ in Renfro's voice. She wonders if he knows how precarious his situation in particular is and yet also knows she isn't going to tell him. Her last thoughts before she drifts off are still of escape, but things are so much more complicated now and the consequences so much worse if she fails. 


End file.
